1- Preheat the oven at 350 degrees and spray an 8x8 baking dish with cooking spray.
2- In a medium sized mixing bowl whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and chocolate chips.
3- In a measuring jar or small mixing bowl whisk together the coconut milk, milk, oil, and vanilla extract.
4- Pour the liquids on top of the flour mix and gently stir (without overmixing!) until everything is thoroughly combined.
5- Pour the brownie cake batter into the prepared baking dish and bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Mine took 30 minutes, but the toothpick didn't come out 100% clean because I like mine a little on the fudgy side.

The cake needs to be at room temperature before you spread the chocolate ganache on top. I didn't bother transferring it to a cooling rack, I hardly ever do, so it's OK to leave in the baking dish until it's ready to be frosted.

1- Place the chocolate chips in a medium sized mixing bowl.
2- In a glass measuring jar or mixing bowl, whisk together the coconut milk and the oat milk. Feel free to replace the oat milk with more coconut milk.
3- Microwave the milk mix for about one minute or just until it starts to boil.
4- Quickly stir in the vanilla.
5- Immediately pour the milk over the chocolate chips and whisk vigorously until the chocolate melts and becomes a smooth cream.

Pouring the milk mix

Whisking the ganache

Smooth operator

Does yours not look smooth? Nuke it into submission for 15 seconds and whisk it again until it surrenders!

6- Take the ganache to the fridge and let it get nice and firm for about an hour.

After you so patiently waited a whole hour, the ganache should be firm and it should look like this:

Stage 3 - Frost the cake

1- Transfer the cake to a large plate or platter or tray. A rimless cookie sheet would be even more convenient.
2- Whisk the cold ganache until it's smooth and pour it on top of the cake. Use a spatula or flat knife to spread it evenly.

Take the frosted cake to the fridge and let the ganache set for another hour (I know!)

The hour will fly by while you wash and stem the strawberries, and while you make the buttercream frosting. If you are going to cut the cake into nine squares then you will need nine strawberries, if you're cutting into 16 little squares then you will need 12 small strawberries.

Stage 4 - Wash and stem the strawberries and pat them dry with a paper towel, especially the bottoms.

1- In a medium sized bowl, cream the margarine and the powdered sugar for about one minute.
2- Add the coconut milk and vanilla extract and keep mixing for another minute or until soft and fluffy. Keep it in the fridge until you're ready to use it. It should look like this:

Sorry! Wrong soft and fluffy! Let's try that again:

Stage 6 - Assemble the Santa hats!

1- Remove the frosted cake from the fridge and cut it into nine squares. If you're making mini squares then go ahead and cut it into 16 squares. A long serrated knife works best for this job. You can trim the sides of the cake first if you want to make all the sides of all the squares be perfectly straight.

Trimming the sides

2- Transfer the buttercream frosting to a piping bag with a medium sized open-star decorating tip. Pipe a spiral of frosting in the middle of each square. The circumference of the spiral should be a little bigger than the bottom of a strawberry. Just eyeball it.

3- Place the strawberries, bottoms down, in the middle of each spiral and gently press the strawberries down.

4- Using the same decorating bag and tip, pipe the buttercream "pom poms" on top of each strawberry hat.

Transfer the finished squares to a serving plate and keep them refrigerated. This cake is best when eaten at room temperature. I hate cold cake, don't you? They get hard and dry. It's best to take it out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature about 30 minutes before you plan to eat it. Or even better, I like to eat the strawberry and the cream first, and then microwave the rest for15 seconds so the cake gets fudgy and the frosting gets ooey gooey. That's the best way! Unless you like cold cake. Then have it your way. Weirdo! :P

Next week I'm doing a whole post about how to make catnip cat toys! *meow*

33 comments:

hooooooooooooray for strawberry-chocolate santa hats, River! i loooove your step-by-step pictorials. you are so awesome! i've never made a granache before & i can't wait to give it a whirl. i think i can make the chocolate cake gluten-free, too. squeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Beautiful, everything about this post is beautiful. And I had no idea that was how you make ganache. I guess I just always assumed that the word was french, so it must be hard to make. This is dangerous information for me to have!

Oh wow. This is insane! The ganache looks like perfection (seriously how did you get it so smooth?!) and the cake itself just sounds so moist and flavorful. Coconut milk is a must for baking! Who cares about the fat?!

Shelby - Thanks! I didn't do anything special to the ganache, but nuking it for 15 seconds after pouring the milk on the chips and stirring seemed to make it extra smooth!

Jenny Lee - I did some research for you and found that Celine has a recipe for gluten free brownies here. I haven't tried it myself but Celine rocks, so it should be awesome! Also, I think Trader Joe's sells a gluten free brownie mix which might be worth a shot!

Mike - Thank you! The shelter never replied to my email, so I didn't get a chance to bake the treats. We are going to deliver the cat toys today so I'll ask them in person while we're there. I did make a batch for my mother in law's pup and he loved them! :-)

Jenn - I love that laundry kitteh too! Funny Furry Feline! I spend way too much time on LOLcats! :-D

Mo - I am no ganache expert! The extra 15 seconds in the microwave took care of the smoothness for me. All I had to do was stir it good!

Sorry about that! I figured because I had only borrowed the idea of using strawberries as santa hats after seeing your picture on food gawker, and didn't actually use any form of your recipe from your blog, I was okay. I'll link it now.

Erica - Thank you so much for the speediest reply ever! It's always safest to credit whoever you got the idea from, in case you run into a meanie! Thank you, and I'm glad your Santa Hats were a hit too! :-)

HELLO THERE!

Welcome to Wing It Vegan!I'm River and this old blog here is where I share my favorite recipes and photos of our fluffy backyard birds. I hope you haven't come here looking for seriousness and sophistication!MORE »